


A Season In Hell Part 1 : Wanted Dead Or Alive

by Min_SD



Series: A Season In Hell [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drama, First Time, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 03, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-10
Updated: 2009-10-10
Packaged: 2018-09-03 06:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8701873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Min_SD/pseuds/Min_SD
Summary: Dean's year is almost up, and his deal is come due.  It's time to go to Hell.  In the weeks leading up to the end of the line, Dean and Sam grow more and more desperate to find a way out for Dean, Sam even makes himself ill.  In all the world, they only have each other to cling to.





	

**Author's Note:**

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> [](http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee441/minonline/seasoninhellbanner01jpg.jpg)  
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> **Author's notes:** Heavy spoilers for the end of Season Three, especially "Time Is On My Side" and "No Rest For the Wicked." 

A SEASON IN HELL : WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE  
  
  


Dean has two weeks left. And time is flying like hell. 

Sam hasn’t really slept much in a long while, but lately he can’t even close his eyes for more than a few minutes before images and pictures start playing on the inside of his eyelids, and he has to get up, get out, move around, do anything to banish those nightmares that begin before he’s even really asleep. 

Dean sees more than Sam means him to. Sam thinks he’s being subtle, but Dean has seen how little he eats, has heard Sam throwing up in the bathroom sometimes more than once in a day. He hears Sam’s little cries in his sleep, sees him chugging coffee 24/7 to keep bad dreams at bay. Sam is getting too thin, his cheekbones sharp like the edge of a knife, his shoulder blades protrude and his ribs are visible through too-pale skin. Sam is popping Chewable Tums like candy, and the dark circles in the hollows under his eyes look like bruises. 

Dean is watching his little brother fall apart, and he doesn’t know what he could possibly do to stop it, seeing as how it’s all his fault. He has tried to get Sam to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic; Dean can't stand to watch as every day that passes breaks Sam just a little bit more. Especially after their last fruitless attempt to retrieve the name of the demon that holds Dean's contract. Every demon they've managed to get their hands on so far seems to prefer Hell to facing the wrath of the mystery demon. 

It galls, actually, that the only _real_ threat they have against demons is exorcism. From all the repeat customers the boys have dealt with over the years, Dean gathers that, for some demons, Hell isn't very impressive or effective as a prison. They just keep getting back up topside no matter how many times they have been hurled down into the Pit. Always slipping the noose and clawing their way up and out. That's when Dean misses the Colt the most, when he stands before a demon, its host body tied to a chair, holding a leather-bound book of Bible mythology and exorcism rituals, rather than cold, hard, steel death. That's when he wishes that bitch, Bela Talbot, was within striking distance. Dean would skin her alive while whistling a happy tune. 

Dean saw the clinic when they drove past it yesterday, after their latest failure, and now he pulls up in front and asks Sam to please go. He sees a kid coming out rubbing a bandaged arm and tugging on the string of a helium balloon. 

“Hey, Sammy, look, they have balloons! I bet if you’re a good boy, they’ll give you a red one!” 

Sam laughs, but the sound of it is painful; Sam laughs at all of Dean’s jokes, smiles when he makes a point, keeps up with Dean's stories about old hunts, old girlfriends, old times. All of Sam’s reactions are preprogrammed behavior to fit around Dean, but there’s very little of _Sam_ in his words and expressions. Dean is beginning to wonder if a pod-person has replaced his brother. 

“I’m not sick,” Sam says in a tired voice. “We don’t have the time, anyway.” 

Dean scowls, “Well if you’re not sick you’re _something_ , and I say we have the time.” 

“Well _I_ don’t.” Stubborn set of his chin. 

Dean contemplates pulling into the lot and then bodily dragging Sam into the clinic, even putting him out with a punch to the face to get him into the building without resistance, but instead he sighs in defeat. “All right, Sammy, whatever you want.” 

Sam looks stricken at that, like Dean actually _did_ punch him. “What I _want_?” Sam scoffs. He can’t believe that Dean just said that. He actually trembles with the force of all that he's holding back. He decides to repeat himself in a slightly different manner to drive it home: “What _I_ want?” And what comes out then is more like a bark than a laugh. Like the sound a wounded animal might make; like a wolf caught in a bear trap, just before it chews off its own paw. 

Dean shivers, white-knuckles the steering wheel because he needs something solid to hold onto. He doesn't mention the clinic to Sam again.  
  
  
  


Dean has one week left, and they’re working out of Bobby’s as a kind of headquarters. Sam has stopped eating altogether, sleeping, too. His nightmares are just too vivid, and they come with such blinding headaches that he’s scared he’s having visions again. Especially since all of his dreams show Dean in Hell, amidst fire, and screams, being held down and sliced open and calling Sam’s name. And there’s so much blood, and his brother is in so much pain, and it’s all so hot and so loud. Sam wonders if, when he goes to sleep, part of him actually visits Hell. Like a piece of his soul splits off from the rest and goes wandering, sinking down, down, into the depths of the Pit, into true despair. Where Dean is screaming, and bleeding and in pieces, and calling for Sam over and over… 

So, yeah, Sam doesn’t sleep. 

Sam is pretty sure that’s guilt he sees on Dean’s face that morning when Sam chugs nearly half a pot of coffee, black. He is able to enjoy it—spiteful, _so-there, look-what-you've-done_ rush of glee—for about thirty seconds before he has to run to the bathroom to throw most of it back up. Dean comes into the bathroom behind Sam as he bends over the toilet and vomits up the slight contents of his stomach. Then Sam’s tough big brother crouches beside him and holds his hair back, strokes it back off his forehead and cheeks, while Sam empties his guts. 

Dean gets a washcloth and wets it with cold water from the sink, then he gently washes Sam’s face with it, wipes the sweat from his brow. Dean mops at the sheen of sweat along Sam's hairline where small curls paste themselves to his skin. Sam closes his eyes and tries not to think, only to feel—the sensation of the wet terrycloth cooling his fever-hot forehead and cheeks, and stroking over the translucent bruise-colored purple of his closed eyelids. Dean runs the cold tap and wets the washcloth again, wrings it out, then moves the blessedly-cool fabric back over Sam’s face. He dabs at the corners of Sam’s mouth, and Sam feels Dean’s fingers brush his skin as he holds Sam’s hair back in one hand and then strokes the washcloth over the nape of his neck. 

“There,” Dean says in a soothing voice. “Better, right?” 

Sam just nods, clutching the porcelain toilet bowl and forcing back a wave of nausea. He’s dizzy, but that might be lack of food…or just the stress of counting down the days before his brother is killed and dragged off to Hell. One or the other, right? 

Sam’s fingers grip and slide on the porcelain bowl and he shudders so hard that it makes his burning headache even worse. 

“Hey, Sammy, stop thinking so much,” Dean says after his own classic fashion. 

“I’m not thinking _enough_ , that’s the problem,” Sam growls, hands clenching into fists. _Keep thinking_ , he urges himself, _you’ll figure it out! You’ll save Dean._ His head is on fire. 

“Sammy, Sammy,” Dean says, shaking his head and drawing Sam into his arms. He discards the washcloth and begins running his fingers through Sam’s hair. “Sam, I can’t stand seeing you do this to yourself. Come on.” 

Sam shakes his head but does not pull away from Dean’s embrace; rather, he fits himself closer to his brother and leans his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean rocks him back and forth, like he did when Sam was a baby and he had trouble sleeping after a bad dream. Dad was never around to act like a parent, Dean had done all that a father or a mother should have done when Sammy was growing up. Taking care of Sam was his job, first and foremost. One he'd never really given up, though he supposes he'll have to, soon. He will have to go and leave Sam behind, with no one there to watch his back. _Bobby_ , Dean thinks, tries to soothe himself with the thought. _Bobby will look after him. Bobby._ The name is like a talisman, all of Dean's hopes for Sam's safety are pinned to it. _Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Bobby will take care of Sammy._

Dean rocks Sam and whispers impossible things, like, “It’ll be okay,” and “Don’t worry, it’ll work out.” 

Sam sits up so suddenly that Dean almost falls over, but then Sam takes two fistfuls of Dean’s shirt and drags himself hand over hand to get in Dean's face, burns him with those fever-bright eyes. “Dean. You’re not going to Hell, Dean. I won’t let you.” 

“Well, that’s good, Sammy,” Dean says, and pulls Sam back into his embrace. But his voice and his face say very clearly that he believes otherwise, and Sam can't stand to look at him. 

After that, Dean helps Sam into bed and pulls him back against his chest, makes a space between his legs to cradle his brother. Finally, Sam fades into exhaustion, able to get a couple of hours sleep from within the circle of Dean's arms. When he wakes, he doesn't feel all that much better physically, and he feels guilty about just that little bit of time lost in unconsciousness. He should be spending every second finding a way out for Dean, a way to keep his brother with him. Dean tries to pull him back down, but Sam fights his brother's clutching arms. 

_He'll thank me later. When I've saved him, he'll thank me. Until then, there's too much to do._ He leaves Dean in bed and gets back to work.  
  
  
  


Dean has three days left, they've exorcized almost twenty demons in the last two weeks—recalling Azazel's army back to Hell one by one, right?—and they know nothing more than they did when they started. 

Sam is so pale, Dean can't stand to see it. It makes him think of Sam lying dead on that bed in Cold Oak, South Dakota, blood seeping out onto the mattress, white and so dead, dead, dead. His lips, his face, his hands on his chest, all gray-white, but for the black shadows that made up his death mask. Dean has trouble breathing when he remembers this, pictures Sam lying still and silent forever while Dean's world faded away. Failure, and worse, lost Sammy, his Sam, the one little light that kept him going all the long, dark while. 

Dean remembers Sam saying once, "Look, Dean, I'm gonna keep hunting. I mean, whatever's coming, I'm taking it head-on. So if you really want to watch my back, well I guess you're gonna have to stick around." 

But he turned out to suck at watching Sam's back. Sam was stabbed in the back. A knife sunk into his spine three times while Dean watched. And Dean made a deal, and got Sammy back, and now it's coming due, and Sam looks almost dead again. _He'll be okay_ , Dean tells himself, _Sammy is stronger than me. He'll be okay without me._ Dean would not have been okay without Sam. 

Dean is holding Sammy in a bed in a motel room where they stopped just to rest for a few hours in the middle of the night before driving back to Bobby's. They are fully clothed, not doing anything untoward, they're just lying close in each other's arms. Dean has a hand on Sam's cheek, feeling the fever-warmth of his skin, presses his lips to Sam's forehead and the searing heat there. Dean gets up and tucks a blanket around Sam before lying back down beside him, and Sam's shivering seems to still. Soon, he's dozing in Dean's arms, face nestled into the curve of Dean's neck. 

Dean is so scared. He's going to die in a few days, and go to Hell. The big H-E-Double Hockey Stick. It's gonna hurt, and it's gonna go on forever…at least until he becomes a demon and climbs out of Hell to spread his evil like every demon and monster he and Sam have ever ganked. 

_Sam_ … 

Dean made this deal so he could have Sam back, and now he's never going to see Sam again. He's still sure that he did good by Sam, but he wonders…If Sam had stayed dead, well, at some point, sooner maybe more than later, Dean would have died, too, and gone to the same place. A good place, he thinks, for Sam definitely, and maybe for him, too. And then he could have been with Sam, and their Mom, and all the people they hadn't been able to save, all together…an eternity with Sammy instead of burning forever in the pits of Hell. It's an uncharacteristically optimistic view of the afterlife for Dean, but he finds himself unusually open to all the other ways of looking at the supernatural world that lies side-by-side with the human world, especially as he gets closer and closer to the end of his time in either. 

Dean's heart keeps skipping beats, then banging too hard and fast to catch up. His eyes burn because Dean is afraid of the dark that descends when he blinks, his throat is rough and dry, and the only thing he feels besides the pain is Sammy in his arms. He puts his lips to Sam's forehead again, this time to lay a kiss there, and then kisses Sam on the top of his head, inhaling the clean scent of his hair and skin. He presses his lips back to Sam's forehead, and then leaves them there, keeping up the contact with his baby brother for as long as he can get away with it. 

Then Sam stirs and tilts his face up, and Dean's breath catches when he sees his brother's wide, dark eyes—round, black pupils eclipsing the emerald-green irises. Then, Sam slants his mouth over Dean's, and for an unthinking, wonderful moment Dean pushes into it, taking all he can get of his brother's soft lips and sweet taste. Then, he pulls away. _Dammit, Sammy_ , Dean thinks, working hard to keep from moving his hands to someplace less innocent than around his brother's arms and going after another kiss. 

Sam whimpers and tightens his grip on Dean, tries to find his lips again, but Dean turns his face up to the ceiling, away from Sam. It hurts, but he doesn't want Sam to do this, to let Dean have this, give him this, just because he'll be gone soon and Sam wants to hold on to him. He's protected Sam from this, from his own infinite, gaping want, for so long, he's not going to give in at the finish line. It's too late, he can't fuck this up, corrupt his Sammy with this darkness inside of Dean that might leak out and tarnish his soul. "No, Sammy," he says, putting a hand on Sam's cheek, partly to sneak in a caress, mostly to hold him back. 

"Dean—" Sam says, but Dean cuts him off. 

"No, Sammy, no," Dean says, and turns to get out of the bed. 

Sam makes a sudden panicked noise and grabs Dean, pulls him back in hard. "Okay, Dean, okay, I won't. Just don't—don't go. Please, just don't—" 

Dean turns into Sam's embrace and soothes Sam, rubbing gentle circles on his back. "It's okay, Sammy," Dean says, even though he can feel Sam's tears on his neck, can hear the small, hitching noises that Sam makes whenever he's trying hard not to cry. "It's okay," he says, and they both know it for the lie that it is, but neither of them remark on it.  
  
  
  


Just one day left, and they're making their final run. 

Fucking Lilith, the dirty hellbitch, they should have known, of course she has Dean's contract. Of _course_ it's her. Sam feels ashamed for not figuring it out on his own, needing another damned soul—the hated, pitiful thief, Bela Talbot—to let the fact slip out. 

Sam looks better than he has in days, his cheeks full of healthy color, his eyes bright and focused. It's good to see, a good way to go out, Dean thinks, a good picture of Sam to keep in his mind for eternity. 

Dean finds out just how willing Sam is to damn himself to save Dean, when Sam calls up that demon, Ruby, and Dean walks in on him asking her how to use his psychic powers to take down Lilith. 

"No, Sam," Dean says, his voice harder than he knew it could be, his face and eyes hard, too, everything turned to stone. Dean feels a pounding fear in his chest as he looks into Sam's eyes and sees a glimpse of madness there, wonders, suddenly, just what Sam might do once Dean is gone. He's always been so used to Sam listening to him, following his lead, he had just assumed that Sam would keep obeying Dean after his death. But as the deadline hanging over their heads comes down on them, Dean sees the depths of Sam's fear lighting up his face and in his gaze, and he feels it in his heart. " _No_ ," he says with extra force, with all the power he has left in his fear-struck body, like he can cow Sam with the strength of his denial alone. 

"Dean—" Sam starts, and with a soul-deep chill Dean sees that he is right, that Sam is farther gone down the path paved with good intentions than Dean could have imagined. 

It makes Dean quicker and more vicious when he attacks Ruby, forces her into the Devil's Trap and gets her knife away from her. As he runs up the stairs with Sam close behind him, he hopes Sam hears the venom that demon bitch is spewing: "I wish I could be there to see it!" Waxing poetic about the torture that will befall Dean in Hell…He hopes Sam will hear it and remember. Once Dean is gone, Sam will only have these memories to guide him, and Dean hopes that this leaves quite an impression. Dean understands that he's going after Lilith, now, in part to keep Sammy safe. Mostly to keep Sam safe, really, not with any belief that even killing Lilith will break his deal. Going after Lilith, because without Dean there to back him up, Sam will be wide open to the demon boss. Best to take her out, _maybe_ give himself a little chance, Dean thinks, rather than leave Sam behind with no one to trust but Ruby, the slippery, black-eyed bitch. 

_Bobby_ , Dean reminds himself. Sam will have Bobby to look after him, too. It's not as good as Dean being there, not _nearly_ as good, but it might just have to do.  
  
  
  


It all went wrong, and time is up. Sam is looking at Dean like his world is crumbling around him, and Dean thinks, _fuck it_ , and pulls Sam in for a kiss. A soul-searing, life-changing kiss, and Dean breaks down and weeps as he thinks of what could have been. Sam is whimpering into his throat, hands gripping at him, pulling him so tight and hot it's like they could melt together. Like Sam is trying to pull Dean into his body, to protect him and keep him there always. Too late, it all comes too late. Dean puts his hands everywhere, taking in Sam's warmth and trying to imprint himself onto his Sammy, so he can leave some of himself behind, leave Sam _something_. Dean was a fool to hold back all this time, seeing in Sam a response, a mirror of his own desires and thinking that it was just his baby brother trying to please him. God, he loves Sammy so much, could have had so much more of him, all of him, but it's just _come too late_. 

Dean didn't think he'd run at the end, thought he'd stand and face what's coming to him, but he runs, all right. He runs with Hell on his heels, with Sam pulling him along, tries to block out his fate with a line of dust at Lilith's feet. But in she comes, and sets a Hellhound on him, and pain beyond believing fills Dean's world corner to corner. And as he fades, he sees Sam thrust up against the wall and fears for his life, surely forfeit under Lilith's power; but he loses his grip on his flesh, his year is up, he's drowning in his own blood. 

Dean dies screaming exactly one year after he brought his brother back to life by making a deal with a devil. 

And then he's in Hell. He's in chains, there are, oh, God, there are _hooks_ stuck through his shoulder and arms and legs and…Sammy, oh, Sammy, I thought I knew but I didn't! I didn't know, I didn't _know_. 

_I didn't believe._

Sammy! Help me, Sammy! 

Sam! 

He doesn't cry for his father or his mother or even for God. Just for Sam, his Sam. But no one can help him now, he's run out of time, lost what grace he had left, and now he's alone and waiting. 

Waiting for eternity to begin.  
  
  
  


*****


End file.
